Why do some local businesses appear on Google Maps while others stay invisible? If you’re a local service area business owner, you probably are asking yourself this question right now.
If you visit customers at their homes or job sites instead of working from a storefront, like electricians, gardeners, or mobile dog groomers, you fall into this category.
Google’s Business Profile (GBP) tool is meant to help, but one wrong move in your setup can quietly block you from showing up where you should.
In this post, we’ll walk you through a proper GBP setup, how to improve your local ranking, and what to know about hidden address settings.
At Matter Solutions, we’ve helped lots of businesses clean up their profiles and get found again. If your listing’s been a ghost in local search, read on. We’re about to clear that up.
What is a Service Area Business?
A Service Area Business (SAB) travels to its customers instead of serving them at a fixed storefront. For mobile businesses, this setup makes it easier to reach the right people in the right locations without needing a shopfront.
Unlike traditional storefront businesses that rely on walk-in traffic, SABs operate within defined zones. Think plumbers, mobile dog groomers, or HVAC technicians. These businesses bring their services directly to homes or job sites.
In Google’s eyes, this distinction matters. The GBP setup for a service area business skips the visible street address and instead highlights the regions served. This changes how your listing appears in search results and affects how Google ranks your visibility within that zone.
The Right Way to Set Up Your GBP
Google Business Profile (GBP) helps your business appear in local search results and on Google Maps. But for a service area business, the setup is different from a physical shop, and getting it wrong can hurt your visibility.
Here’s how to set it up the right way:
- Claim or create your profile: Start at Google Business Profile and follow the steps to claim or create your listing.
- Choose the right business type: When prompted, select “I deliver goods and services to my customers.” This flags your listing as an SAB.
- Set your service areas properly: Instead of a radius, enter specific regions, cities, or postcodes where you operate.
- Use accurate categories and NAP info: Select your main category wisely, and make sure your name, address (if required), and phone number match across all platforms.
Let’s look at one of the most confusing steps next: hiding your address.
Should You Hide Your Address?
For SABs, your address setting plays an important role in local visibility. If your business doesn’t serve customers at a fixed location, Google expects you to hide your address. This helps avoid confusion and filters out foot traffic you can’t accommodate.
Some believe hiding the address ruins rankings. In our experience, that’s not true. We’ve ranked dozens of businesses without putting a visible address up. While it may affect visibility in the map pack for some searches, your profile can still rank well if your setup is solid.
We helped a pest control business that left its address public. People started showing up at the listed location, then left bad reviews when they found no storefront.
After hiding the address and updating the service areas, those issues disappeared, and their local ranking started to improve.
How Service Area Settings Impact Local Rankings
After addressing visibility, let’s talk about the next piece that trips people up. We’re going to see how your service area settings influence your spot in search results.
What Google Looks At
To understand how a service area business ranks locally, it helps to break down Google’s main ranking factors:
- Relevance: How well your GBP profile matches what someone is searching for. Clear categories, services, and keywords help here.
- Distance: How physically close your verified location is to the searcher’s location. This is fixed, even if you list multiple service areas.
- Prominence: How well-known or well-reviewed your business is online. This includes your reviews, citations, and overall web presence.
Google mixes these signals to determine which businesses show up. For a service area business, your verified location still affects distance. But by improving relevance and prominence, you can boost your local ranking significantly.
Your Service Area Doesn’t Move Your Pin
Adding more suburbs or postcodes to your service area doesn’t change your actual placement in Google’s internal map system. Your listing still ranks based on your verified location. That’s why some SABs list twenty areas but only show up in one.
Storefronts vs. SABs
Storefronts often have a visibility edge in busy areas because Google has a fixed location to rank. Still, service area businesses can compete by keeping their GBP accurate, building strong local pages, and earning consistent reviews. Adding updates like photos and service details also helps improve relevance.
Pro Tip: Build location-specific content on your site for each major suburb you serve.
From our experience, local pages that reflect real jobs completed in those areas often rank higher and attract better leads.
What Happens When You Move?
If you move and don’t update your GBP setup, your listing may still rank based on the old address. That can confuse Google and hurt your visibility, even with a hidden address.
Common Mistake
Many businesses forget that Google still uses the verified address behind the scenes, hidden or not. These errors are easy to miss but can affect your local presence. Take a look at the most common ones:
- Keeping the old address after relocating
- Not updating the hidden address in the GBP dashboard
- Leaving outdated listings on directories and social platforms
The Right Way to Handle a Move
Fixing your GBP setup after a move needs to be done carefully. Here’s how to be conflict-free and protect your local ranking:
- Log in to your Google Business Profile and change the address
- Hide the new address if you don’t serve customers at the location
- Re-verify the listing if prompted
- Update all business listings and citations across the web
Accurate info keeps your GBP setup foolproof and your business visible.
Common SAB Mistakes That Hurt Visibility
Once your GBP setup is in place, keeping it healthy is just as important. A few common missteps can silently hurt your local ranking, especially for an SAB. Watch out for these:
- Too Many Overlapping Service Areas: Listing too many suburbs or postcodes that overlap can look spammy to Google and reduce trust in your listing.
- Fake Addresses or Virtual Offices: Using an address you don’t operate from violates Google’s guidelines and risks suspension.
- Skipping Post-Verification Updates: After getting verified, many businesses forget to update key details like service areas, hours, or contact info.
- Neglecting Profile Maintenance: Letting your listing sit without new photos, reviews, or content signals inactivity to Google, which can affect your local ranking.
Staying adhered to these basics helps your service area business stay competitive and visible in search results.
Keep Your SAB Visible Where It Matters
Setting up your Google Business Profile the right way improves your visibility as a service area business. From hiding your address properly to avoiding mistakes like outdated info or overlapping service zones, every step has a direct impact on where you show up in local search.
We’ve covered how to create a clean GBP setup, why your verified location still matters, and how Google looks at things like relevance, distance, and prominence. Keeping your information accurate and fresh is one of the simplest ways to stay ahead in competitive areas.
If your listing isn’t performing the way it should, it’s worth taking a closer look. At Matter Solutions, we help service-based businesses stay compliant and get found by the right people. Contact us and let’s sort it out together.
